


Split Sutures

by heidiamalia



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Car Accidents, F/M, Hospitalization, Kidnapping, billy's knife has a cameo, so this is post s2 teaser - pre s2 trailer, some bts photo speculations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 21:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heidiamalia/pseuds/heidiamalia
Summary: “If you attempt to leave that bed again, Karen, I will call the nurse back and have her strap you down.”She sees him for the first time since she arrived with a stab wound to her abdomen, another puncture in her opposite thigh. Her whole body aches, covered in scratches and marks from the ambulance crash. He's still in an NYPD officer uniform, a hat in his left hand. His shirt is tight across his chest, the stretch in the blue fabric prominent on his arms. She can see that the holster at his hip for a gun is empty but his boots are full.Karen decides this isn't his worst outfit.-Karen is in hospital after being kidnapped. Frank won't let up on keeping her safe.





	Split Sutures

**Author's Note:**

> hi helloooo  
> this is seriously speculation ffic and once the actual trailer and the season (!!!) drops I'll probably be way off on plot lines and totally embarrassed with my face in my hands over it but I mean SO BE IT, OKAY?  
> in all seriousness though, can we also just, admire Karen for a second here, like, just for the knowledge that she is who she is, but also for the fact that it's taken the writers 5 individual seasons of Netflix Marvel shows to give us the karen-as-damsel in hospital trope. unless i'm missing something in early DD but TPs2 will be the first time our babe gets a hospital bed. BRING ON THE LOVE AND BEDSIDE CONFESSIONS for our otp mkay.

“If you attempt to leave that bed again, Karen, I will call the nurse back and have her strap you down.”

Her eyes are closed to avoid the harsh overhead light, not him.

He seems pretty sure of himself.

“Mm,” she manages. “Kinky.” Her right arm covers her face, the crook of her elbow dimming the view of the red behind her eyelids. The hospital bed she’s in is set flat, all the way down, a protest she couldn't fight for in the past three days she's been stuck here when the remote is unplugged. Her nurse this morning kept the shades open and the fluorescent above her on high all night. Karen isn't exactly sure how she got on her shit list but she really misses her own bed. “All we need then are handcuffs and it's like the day we met.”

Frank scoffs lightly, and she can imagine him turning his head to the side like he does when he smiles. She lifts her chin to hide her mouth in her elbow when he does respond, humor soaked in his words. “Yeah yeah, I got those, too.” Metal rattles together from his hip.

Karen takes a peek at him in the shadow her arm makes, squinting away from the bulb above her and sees him for the first time since she arrived with a stab wound to her abdomen, another puncture in her opposite thigh. Her whole body aches, covered in scratches and marks from the ambulance crash. He's still in an NYPD officer uniform, a hat in his left hand. It's bouncing lightly off his right knuckles as he takes a look at her, his head tilted. His shirt is tight across his chest, the stretch in the blue fabric prominent on his arms. She can see that the holster at his hip for a gun is empty but his boots are full.

Karen decides this isn't his worst outfit.

“Turn the lights off?”

He nods, ducking his head before turning to the door, hitting the switch. “This gonna keep you in bed?” _Maybe,_ the thought flies through her mind. Frank is already crossing the room again, chucking his hat on the windowsill, roughly grabbing at the heavy curtains, shutting the streetlight reflections out.

“They won't give me any coffee,” she complains. His shadow comes closer, leaning over the bed to look at the wall of plugs and wires behind her, figuring which to touch first. The lines of his face grow as he looks down at her then, hard but still disbelieving. The gash on his cheek has healed a bit since he pulled her out of danger - again. “Forgive me for trying to take a walk down the hall to get it myself.”

The light flickers, dimming down to a soft yellow. He lowers, his head disappearing bedside, cords shuffling on the floor before the bed remote indicator light turns red. _Yes_ , she thinks, grasping for it and hitting the button to raise the bed to a reasonable sitting position. Frank settles into the armchair next to her, a foot wrapping around a chair leg and dragging it closer. She stop-go-stops the mechanics a few times before he tugs it from her hand, snatching it away when he catches a _hiss_ escape her mouth when she takes it too far. He shoves it into the crevice between the mattress and the lowered bed rail, out of her reach.

“You've been here for three days and you've ripped your stitches in twice as many times,” he accuses. It's empty of irritation, but she can tell he's frustrated. He's staring at the deep purple marks tracking down her right cheek, a blue thumbprint hiding beneath her jaw. The nurse yesterday _tut-tutt-_ ed at her when she replaced all her dressings, mumbling about _such a pretty face, what a shame_. “You gotta stay put.”

The pain in her left leg is palpable, a reminder, and she thinks of the young med student who eyed the sutures on her ribs warily the first time they split. “That's _not_ entirely my fault.” Frank is leaning forward, fingers interlocked and elbows on his knees, shaking his head with a small laugh like he doesn't believe her. “No, c'mon,” she mutters, easing to stretch her good leg, trying to avoid the constant feel of pins and needles. “Billy got me in a once-in-a-blue-moon spot, like a slice in your elbow,” she explains, lifting her left hand and waving it to bend and show him, the skin taut.  Karen thinks of the news station announcing his capture. “I'm gonna be okay, though.” After a moment she drops it back down to her stomach.

Karen can only clearly remember the moment he apprehended her, his arm gracing itself casually around her shoulders as she walked out of the coffeeshop. She had just chucked the last dregs of her hazelnut latte into the bin by the door and he had merely slipped out from the corner of her eye. It was not nearly as crowded on the sidewalk that day as it could have been. His smug face was marred with scars, bumps of uneven skin - wearing combat boots and a camouflage cargo jacket - a stark opposite of the last time he smiled at her, 8 floors up in the Roosevelt hotel.

His grip was harsh and bruising as he told her low and charming, to _come with me, Miss Page._ Billy was flush to her side, access to her weapon in her purse had been a pinch, his finger hooked around the strap and dropping it from her reach and onto the pavement. Karen flexed her hand on instinct, an attempt to catch the handles on its way down. _No need for you to get hurt._ She should have been watching for it when she resisted the way his fingers slid across the back of her neck, tight and nearly choking. The knife up his sleeve had pressed against her ribs as a warning, _Frankie needs a chance to save his girl._

She's freaking bait, again, god. _Where are we going?_ Her voice was light but strained, as she made for casual while his thumb pressed into the meat of her throat, fingers dug up into her scalp. Karen tried to sidestep him after a few minutes as they made their way down the sidewalk, to show it as if she tripped, to get any semblance of a distance between them before running. She was wearing flats today, she could do it.

Billy stopped abruptly, and yanked her towards him, his eyes black and his sneer worse than the deep jagged grooves in his face. _You need to settle down,_ he said, _stop sticking your nose in places it doesn't belong._ He must have meant her recent hunt for information at the docks. Karen jolted - gasped - in pain. The tip of the knife slipped in and glided across her side, which ripped a part of her blouse to expose the red of her insides.

_Lookit that,_ he told her then, pointing off to the street with his arm as she braced her own against her side. _Perfect._ _Just in time._ The shock of her hand coated in thick burgundy rivulets allowed him to drag her forward and into the back of an idling ambulance, his hands had grasped to reach her legs and lift her as she fell forward from the pain. It had slid through her skin again - this time in the underside of her thigh - and he let out a laughing _whoops_ when he had taken a step into the van.

_Karen?!_

_Hey, eyes forward,_ Billy shouted to the driver. _Get going_. She rolled her neck to see just who it was when he stopped pinning her cheek to the cool metal wall of the truck. Brett Mahoney sat in the driver seat, his hands duct taped to the steering wheel. A bruise formed beside his nose, and his eyes were decidedly not forward but wide and panicky on the increasing puddle of red against her cloud-gray top.

_Brett,_ she whispered when Billy moved away, _what's happening?_

It's a muddled blur from there - the constant ebb of pain in her side, the surprise wound that pooled beneath her pencil skirt, the bloody trail behind her knee. The shouting, the medical equipment Billy used to hold her down to the bench that bit into her wrists. The cabin jostled as they moved quickly into the streets.

Things within eyesight had crashed together as they swerved around until soon her view of the windshield was distorted, tires squealing, _pop pop pop,_ a loud metal scrape noise against the side - they'd turned sharply, halfway around in highway traffic - before tilting.

Billy had already been making his escape out from the passenger door before the van had begun careening off the overpass - Brett was screaming - and flipped them upside down.

Something heavy and sharp smacked her hard in the face before it tumbled down to the metal ceiling. The silence when everything came to a halt was long and deafening. She was still bleeding. Her legs were a tangled red mess in breathing masks and aluminum blankets on the side of the van, her hands still trapped against the underside bar of the bench. It was difficult to hear anything besides the rush in her ears. Glass in the windows had shattered when they landed, littered on her skin. The back doors bounced open, a slow sway off their hinges. Her choking sobs felt tight and wet in her chest. Frank. Frank was there somehow. His hands on her face. His hands covered in blood.

_Shh shh shh. I got you._

Frank's face falls short, and his eyes close, a small shake, the end of his freshly stubbled chin rubbing back and forth against his hands. She takes his silence for a moment to grab the cup of ice water on her bedside tray, tucked flush to the wall beside him, and take a sip before prying. The ice chips have melted. “How's Brett?”

“Alive,” he grunts. He meets her eyes again, exhaling deeply through his nose. His gaze is far away, a slight nod as if he’s agreeing to something. Frank reaches slowly across the blanket for her bruised right hand after she sets the cup back down. Their fingers touch. “Nothing broken. Couple of bruises leftover, though.” Karen looks on as he hooks them towards the edge of the mattress, towards him. “Already back in uniform.”

She can tell how cold her hand is, but he doesn't pull away. His hand is hot and it radiates against her hip beneath the hospital blanket. It's not a stretch for her when he leans in, holding her hand to his jaw as he set his elbows onto the mattress. “And you,” she manages to get out, “are you okay?” Frank sighs and shuts his eyes, inhaling the scent of her palm before kissing it softly, leaning into her touch.

Karen tries to breathe _in out in out_ as his right hand rests on her lifted forearm. His fingers hesitantly soothe over the scabs and bruises left behind by the shattered glass and whatever else that hit her before keeping still to feel her pulse.

Frank is quiet for a short time before humming his acknowledgement. Her thumb on his cheek rubs against the stubble, the sharp pin pricks on her skin a gentle comparison to the hazard she felt she was when he was pulling her out of the wreck.

She lifts her left hand to stroke his hair, long enough now to lose her fingers in. For a moment it's all she can focus on doing while she listens to him breathe beside her. Frank's eyes open again to watch her after her right hand creeps slow under his to wrap around his neck, her thumb still petting his jawline. Karen catches him looking and smiles with her teeth.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, I'm okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello i'm on tumblr.


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